When writing The White Tiger and Native Son, Aravind Adiga and Richard Wright used setting to influence the plot of the novels, making the stories of the their characters took place in very regulated and controlling societies. Their extreme conditions push the protagonists to want to escape from the cycle they find themselves in and the only way to do so, according to them, is to carry out negative actions and extreme crimes. While Balram Halwai successfully escapes the “Cock Stable” of Indian society, Bigger Thomas struggles in the racist community of Chicago in the 1930s. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The White Tiger shapes a visual representation of corruption in Indian society. Voter fraud is a common practice in India; Rich landowners or entrepreneurs are expected to give the Great Socialist money or the fingerprints of the people who work for them. The poor population has no say in what happens in the nation, even if the country is considered democratic. People are forced to follow the instructions of their leaders: “There was an election coming up and the tea shop owner had already sold us out. He had sold our fingerprints, those ink prints that the illiterate leaves on the ballot paper to indicate his vote. . . he had obtained a good price for each of us from the party of the Great Socialist” (Adiga 81). Because most of the poor population is illiterate, due to being dropped out of school early or simply not having any education. money to pay for a school, it is easier for educated people in power to prevail and manipulate those from lower social classes. The government takes advantage of the country's poor educational situation by giving money to entrepreneurs to regulate elections, because entrepreneurs are only interested in receiving money to support their families. Such actions done by the government cause the cycle of corruption and poverty to become unbreakable because no change can be brought about when the same people hold the position of power. Adiga creates a strong contrast between the rich people of India and the poor people living in India. the so-called “Rooster Coop” and works for the rich all his life: the Indian caste system. While the rich swim in their plethora of wealth with luxury residences, huge shopping malls and personal chauffeurs; the working class suffers from extreme poverty and the only thing they can rely on is their water buffaloes and give birth to many children so that they can work and bring some money to the family for food: “At the entrance of my house, you will see the most important member of my family. The water buffalo. . . She was the dictator of our house!” (Adiga 17). The Balram family not only loves the buffalo because it is the sacred symbol of India, but also because it is their main source of money. The more milk the buffalo produces, the more money the family receives. This carries a high risk of losing everything they rely on, which could very well lead to starvation. Location plays an important role in Balram's character development and mindset. When Balram is dropped out of school, he is forced to work in the Tea Shop to earn additional income for the family. He observes the lives of other people in poverty and realizes that if something doesn't change, he will follow in his family's footsteps and remain in this poverty for the rest of his life. Balram is certain that when he leaves the Darkness to travel and work in the Light, he will escape poverty and have a better life for himself and hisfamily. But when he arrives in New Delhi, his dreams do not surpass reality. What he is witnessing is the opposite of what he imagined: “These people built houses for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarps and divided into lanes by sewage lines. It was even worse than Laxmangarh” (Adiga 222). For Balram, it has always seemed that big cities bring people success and wealth, when in reality the poor remain poor and the rich remain rich, no matter whether they are in Laxmangarh or New Delhi. Native Son's Bigger faces social discrimination in his community that forces him to commit extreme actions to express his anger towards racism. Films and newspapers suppress Bigger's image of himself and make him believe in white superiority: “Here are the daughters of the rich sunbathing in the sands of Florida! This small collection of debutantes represents over four billion dollars of American wealth and over fifty of America's leading families. . .” (Wright 31). Pop culture always illustrates beautiful white people who are rich and happy. Recounting the amount of money white people live on, Bigger feels overwhelmed and weak because he could never compete with them. Whites are also portrayed as highly educated and good at managing finances, which would be an acceptable reality for Bigger: “Those were smart people; they know how to get money, millions” (Wright 33). Pop culture makes him believe that because of the color of his skin he will never possess large amounts of money or have a high-paying job. Bigger's entire life is spent living in poverty along with every other black person in Chicago. South Side is a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Black people are forced to live there because they cannot afford to rent or buy another home, or the white owners are unwilling to rent it to a black person. This leads to horrible conditions among families: overcrowding, insufficient natural resources such as water and gas, and lack of privacy: “He crawled back to the fireplace, seeing before his eyes the image of the room of five people, all black naked under the strong sunlight, looks through sweaty glass: the man and woman moving jerkily in the tight embrace, and the three children watching” (Wright 247). He had to avoid seeing young naked children watching their parents have sex, because he knows that it is not something young children should see but they have no other solution for the conditions they find themselves in. Such a situation resembles Bigger's. childhood, because he experienced the same type of constricting scenario. This situation makes Bigger even more angry towards the white population, because he knows that it is because of them that blacks are segregated and forced to conform to the living conditions in which they live. As Bigger changes his locations and social settings, his mindset changes with them. The Dalton house was an extreme shock to him after seeing the luxurious and powerful life those white people lived, which in turn made him feel very self-conscious and even more pressured and insecure about his race. On the smooth walls were several paintings. whose nature he tried to understand, but could not. He wanted to examine them, but he didn't dare. Then he listened; from somewhere a faint sound of piano music reached him. He was sitting in a white house; dim lights burned around him; strange objects challenged him; and he felt angry and uncomfortable. (Wright 45) When he is present in a white house he is so afraid of what white people can do to him that he dares not do anything to make them angry or be punished for. His feeling of anger comes from his feeling of injustice towards segregation,.
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